[The movement started slowly at first, but soonExpanded exponentially into every part of life. The oldCommuter train that bore Light to his exile was boughtAnd the track scrapped and recycled to make way for aShining electromagnetic bullet train. Sleek and silver, It tore through the city like a volt across a wire, andAs quickly as it moved, the city was transformed aroundIt.

Beneath the hammers of Wily's new army of metalWorkmen, buildings were razed to the ground, leveled inA single morning. New foundations were laid in the sameAfternoon. Structures, metal frames piercing theClouds, were erected before nightfall. Glass and steelWrapped the frames before the sun rose the next day.Then the armies of machines would move onto the nextTask. Never stopping. Never slowing. Never resting.

Morning after morning, the men and women of the cityAwoke to find a bright new world. Everything wasRemade. Made better. Made brighter. The streets wereSwept. The undesirables, the homeless, the criminalElement of the city, systematically vanished.

The single screen on top of the tower sent out signalsTo the now hundreds of satellite screens. The factoriesWere fully automated. The mines run entirely byMachine. The men that found themselves suddenly livingLives of leisure crowded the bars, slowly imbibing theGenerous severances they'd received, not so much as aSingle I'll word grumbled towards their replacements.The city was a bright and shining beacon of light... aSteel-plated heaven.

Years passed.

A generation grew up within the metal arms thatEmbraced the city. The older generations never toldThem what the city looked like before the machines. Why

Would they? What good could come from telling theChildren of the type of dark, filthy, and dangerousWorld that men create when left to their own devices?That once men slaved away deep inside the earth, Risking death for the sake of survival. That once womenLeft their children, still asleep in their beds, toGrind away mindless hours in the factories, sacrificingFamily to secure necessities.

This new world was so perfect that it seemed dangerousTo speak of the old world. As if this new city, sprungFrom a sea of darkness, was balanced on a single point, Teetering on a crucial ignorance. It seemed that anyMisstep, any wrong word, could topple the city, sinkingIt back in the sea, that dark abyss of human suffering, Leaving them with nothing. After all, they were not theCreators of this world. They were merely the recipientsOf a gift. A gift given to them by a single man and hisCountless steel hands. And just as easily as it wasGiven, couldn't it be taken away?

An unspoken fear dangled above the heads of every manAnd woman. Keeping them silent. Keeping them safe.

Even so, rumors started. Ghost stories of a demon. ABeast with a single red eye. He that would pluck youFrom your bed at night if you were found with aDissenting word on your tongue. Mothers told childrenTo stay close as they traveled through the streets, Keep a smile on their faces, and never speak I'll of theMachines.

A generation grew up inside the metal hands that gentlyCircled the neck of the city. Some of them grew upHating the city, fearing the machines. There was oneBoy in particular. His name was Joe.]